If Not For The Blood That Binds Us
by Saiyan-C
Summary: I kept up the pretence that I was pure and innocent, and hoped that no one would see the stains that only I seemed to see... One-sided LeeMariah, attempted rape


Disclaimer: I do not own Beyblade. Therefore, I don't own Mariah, Lee, Ray's parents, Lee's grandfather, etc.

This fic is something I've been putting off for a long time now. I have written how Lee tried to rape Mariah in basically every one of my fics, yet I have never written what actually happened. I think I need to stop skirting around this and finally write what happened.

**WARNING: This fic contains attempted rape, incest of the cousin/cousin variety, and obsession on the part of a certain White Tiger captain.** I hope that people smart enough to know the difference between an apple and an orange will be also be smart enough to not condemn and mock this writing, trying to flame me into deleting it. Yes, I basically said that anyone who gives me a flame saying 'U r sick!! Y wud Lee rape Mariah?!', or 'What a GAY story. Get a life, moron' or the more articulate 'Your story stinked! Stupid idiot! This is the most idiotic story I've ever read!' you are showing that you must be mentally retarded, or you would have read the warning. I have seen people write such reviews about such brilliant pieces of work as _'Twisted in its Own Special Way'_ by Anu-Chan, which is based on her own experiences of rape and other fics that are based on people's own experiences with rape. I find it quite disgusting how people can mock things that come from so deep inside a person. So, for the final time, **this story contains attempted rape, incest (cousin/cousin) and sexual scenes. If you also don't like the thought of Lee forcing himself on Mariah, I suggest you take your leave.**

However, constructive criticism is a completely different matter. You can tell me where I have gone wrong with this story, so I can correct it, and we will all go on with our sunshine-happy lives.

Forgive me for ranting for so long and getting so angry towards flamers … for the people who sat through that rant, onto the first and probably not the last R-rated fic I will write. Enjoy 'The Blood That Binds Us.'

~~~

The sun was beginning to set over the enclosed village, red light streaking through the darkening clouds that had nearly covered the whole sky. It wasn't even six o'clock, and the sky was going dark over Mariah's head as she sat quietly on her windowsill, swinging her legs over the ledge as she tried to gain some clarity on what had happened.

"He's gone Mariah," she told herself firmly, saying it quietly in case Kevin was creeping around on the roof again, "He's gone and you don't know when he's gonna be back or if he's going to come back. You're just going to have to deal with it."

She fell silent again, then spotted a light flickering on in the house across from hers, a silhouette through the blinds. Someone was stood in the window, and even though Mariah couldn't make out any details, she knew who it was.

Lee.

He'd been staying in his room every single day since Ray had left. After all, Ray had been his best friend, and other than Mariah herself perhaps, had taken his sudden disappearance the hardest. He'd been one of the people to stay out all night looking for him until Ray's mama found the letter on the desk in her son's room. He told them that he wanted to go away and become a better Beyblader, become a better person. He said that he would have told them he was leaving, but they wouldn't have let him go if he had, and he HAD to go.

_I'll be back when I've proved to myself that I've become better in everything I need to. I'll make you proud._

That hadn't stopped Ray's mama crying all night, wailing that her baby had gone away without even saying goodbye. Mariah had felt so angry… how could Ray do that to his parents, Lee, Gary, Kevin, herself? Hadn't Ray promised them once that they were always going to stay together? That they were all going to be best friends through thick and thin, through good times and bad times, through rain, sun, sleet and snow, and all that sort of stuff?

He'd broken his promise, and now Lee was shutting himself up in his room, Kevin was snapping at anyone who came near him, and Gary had disappeared too, staying around with his parents more, like he couldn't face talking about Ray one more time. And all the while, everyone in the village had been muttering about betrayal, running away from his responsibilities, and how Ray had shamed his family. Mariah felt like joining in, but… 

She didn't really know what to say about it. He might have really just gone to make himself a better person.

Mariah's thoughts were interrupted as her mama called for her somewhere below her room.

"Mao!" She called out Mariah's pet name from the bottom of the stairs, "We're going to have some supper at your cousin's house, so get a jacket on and come on."

Mariah snorted; the house was only across from theirs, not thirty metres away, and her mother still expected her to wear a jacket like a good girl in the 'cold' night. She pulled her legs in and jumped off the windowsill into her room, quickly untying the jumper around her waist and pulling it over her head. She wasn't really in the mood to have her mama and papa having a rant at her for only wearing a top and pants, and rain was starting to fall outside, steadily growing heavier.

"You do know that it's much easier to go out through the front door Mao?" Her papa asked Mariah a few minutes later, when Mariah climbed down to the ground from her bedroom window, nearly slipping on the way down because of the rain wetting her hands and sneakers. Her mama's eyes lingered on the sweater, obviously thinking that her daughter should have worn something other than a thin jumper, but said nothing.

The first thing Mariah noticed when she walked into the house, as she removed her shoes at the door, was how quiet it was. Generally it was full of laughter, usually Lee, Kevin, Ray and Gary running around and planning something to do to liven up the place, Lee's parents chatting and laughing, Lee's grandfather joining in from time to time when he wasn't sat up at the temple. But this was like the house of a dying person.

Mariah wasn't really listening, leaning her head on her hand at the table as her parents starting talking to Ray's mama and papa, hushed tones that made her feel like they were talking about Ray's funeral. There was a nice smell coming from the kitchen as the Elder muttered to Lee's father, and all of the silence and tension was driving her mad as food was slowly passed around, and she began to chew absent-mindedly on the end of her ribbon.

"Mao, be a dear and go fetch Lee, would you?" Her aunt asked her from across the table, the pink haired girl happy to oblige as she quickly got out of her chair, "He might be a little stubborn, so you might have to take a while to convince him to come downstairs."

"No problem," Mariah waved it off; in her opinion, the longer she stayed out of the company of the adults, the better. She quickly ran up the stairs, nearly tripping twice, and walked across the landing to stop in front of her cousin's room, in front of a closed door.

Mariah hesitated for a few moments; maybe Lee just wanted to be alone. She didn't really want to intrude on him when he was like this, let alone try to convince him to come downstairs; Lee would win first place for most stubborn person in the world if he really got into his stride. But what could she do? She'd been told to get him, and even if she had to drag him downstairs by the hair, she'd get him downstairs.

Shrugging, the thirteen year old pushed the door inwards and stuck her head in.

"Lee?"

He was stood next to the window, seeming to be idly watching the rain fall outside. There was only a candle to light the room, flickering slightly on the bedside table, looking on the verge of going out, and Mariah slid into the room, closing the door behind her with a quiet creak.

"Lee? Earth to Lee?"

Lee turned his head towards the sound of the voice, the eye that Mariah could see shining in the candlelight. She stepped back uneasily; there was a look in his eye that she had never seen before, like his eyes had glazed over. It seemed to take him a few moments for him to realise who it was, then he turned around fully, a faint smile playing along his lips. Mariah could still see some of the cuts on his arms that had not yet healed.

"Mariah…"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Mariah hadn't expected that, and she blinked, frowning at her cousin, "What d'you mean Lee?" she asked uncertainly, trying to ignore the alarm bells that had suddenly begun going off in her head.

He made a noise that was probably a forced laugh, shaking his head slightly.

"You know what I mean." Lee had begun to walk towards her, and Mariah backed up a little, still uncertain and trying to figure out if this was a big joke that he was putting on. She was deluding herself, she knew, but she didn't want to think about something that had always frightened her.

"I don't," the thirteen year old answered, starting to feel frightened as her cousin stopped in front of her, still smiling that cobweb-faint smile. "Lee, stop it. If this is a joke, it's not funny."

"I'm not joking, Mariah." Lee reached out a hand and touched her cheek, just below her right eye. Mariah started shaking all over, scared, but not sure why. She had backed up as far as she could go, and she could feel the door handle digging into her back.

_Please let this be a joke_, Mariah thought desperately as the fingertips slid into her hair, his other hand coming to her waist as he stepped even closer to her. _Please make him stop._

The hand at her waist snaked around her back, and he slowly pulled her forward so her head was resting against his chest, her left cheek pressed against the bare muscle that his vest didn't cover. Mariah could hear his heart beating in her ear through all the internal warning sirens, and she could finally smell the slight taint of alcohol on his breath as he absently stroked her hair. It felt … odd, and that confused her more than anything. Of course Mariah had heard stories of rape, but they always involved the girl cowering in fear as her clothes were ripped to shreds before being taken by force.

But he wasn't forcing her, or even being rough. When Mariah had guiltily wondered about what happened when people 'did it', and what her friends would be like, she had always thought of Ray being the gentle considerate lover, not Lee.

"Lee, let me go," she squeaked.

He didn't seem to hear her. After a few minutes of merely standing there, Lee's heart beating faster as Mariah listened, one arm around her waist, one hand running through her hair, Mariah felt scared. This was wrong, she knew it was – why wasn't she stopping him? She trembled, frightened and confused, as the hand that was in her hair dropped, brushing lightly against her cheek before sliding under her chin, gently tilting her face upward.

Mariah knew what happened now; she had read too many romance novels not to know. But still she kept her face up, and she felt his breath on her face for a moment before his mouth was against hers, feeling as he ran his tongue over her bottom lip, trying to coax her into opening her mouth.

_Why am I letting him do this?_

Mariah broke away, staring up into her cousin's face for a moment, desperately trying to find out what was happening. His eyes were darker than they usually were, and they looked … glazed. Like he didn't know what he was doing.

"Lee, snap out of it," she pleaded, forcing his arms away and ducking away from him, backing away from him, away from the door. She couldn't go downstairs now; her aunt Mei would ask questions about why her face was red and why she was on the verge of tears, and her mother would scold her for not bringing Lee downstairs. She was moving towards the window, not turning her back on Lee who had begun to walk towards her. She had to get back to the ground, go home, pretend that she had felt sick and that Lee had told her to leave. A pathetic cover-up, but she didn't want to get the adults involved, didn't want to think about this. All she wanted to do was forget.

Then the back of her knees banged into something, and since she had been taken by surprise, Mariah fell backwards with a quiet yelp. For a few moments, she lay there, frozen on her back as she realised how stupid she had been, feeling the blanket beneath her.

_If I hadn't lain there for those few seconds, I would have gotten away..._

Mariah sat up quickly on the edge of the bed, even though she knew she had moved too slowly and now her time to escape had just ran out. Lee had managed to reach the bed in the time that Mariah had lain there, and he sat beside her on the blankets, closer than she wanted him to be.

"Lee, what are you doing?" she stammered as she felt his hand start to drift up her back, over the thin jumper and tight white top that she suddenly wished she had never started wearing. Lee shook his head, not smiling anymore.

"Just … another minute." Mariah flinched as he slid the hand stroking her back underneath the two layers of fabric, coming in contact with her bare skin and up to the strap of her bra. He had never touched her like this before tonight, never going beyond a cousinly hug or two, a peck on the cheek, so this new sensation of her cousin touching her in this way was frightening, terrifying. She felt like her insides were seizing up, and she couldn't seem to move anymore, even when he withdrew his hand from her back and lay her on her back on his bed.

_I knew what you were going to try to do…_

                                    _Yet I didn't stop you._

_                                                                        Ray, why did you leave me here for this?_

In the books that she had read, intercourse was never called by its name. Lovemaking. Making babies. That sort of stuff. And it was always such a beautiful scene, always between the two characters that she wanted to get together since the beginning. Of course, there were no exact details, because Mariah was never allowed to read books that spoke of 'filthy things'. But when she was lying there, Lee expertly shedding his vest and working on removing Mariah's jumper and top as he straddled her waist, the girl realised that that was nearly never the case. It wasn't to do with love. It was something … animal, a primitive need that people did to carry on their legacy.

He wanted to fuck her. That was all.

Mariah felt as he forced her jumper and top off over her head as one, and she trembled, closing her eyes from the sight of him as his eyes burned over her front, darker than ever. She kept them shut as he moved his hands behind her back and unclipped the last thing covering up her chest with an unusually knowledgably ease; he must have done this before with another girl, she thought wildly, inexplicably randomly as Lee pulled it away, down her arms that she couldn't seem to move and throwing it aside, onto the floor with her white top and sweater.

For a moment there was nothing, and Mariah dared to open an eye slightly, to see if he was stopping. He was still sitting there, frozen as his glazed eyes flicked over her bare front, and she felt like her heart was going to burst with the shame as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut again, trying as hard as she could to block it all out. After a few minutes that seemed hours of nothing except the sound of talking downstairs, Mariah let out a whimper as Lee pulled down her snug-fitting three quarter pants, all the way down to fall away onto the floor, leaving her in only her underwear covering her virginity, sending her into a new spiral of panic and fear. They had to notice that she hadn't come back, they had to … she had been gone too long, they had to think that something was amiss …

But they weren't, and Mariah finally felt tears course down her cheeks, not because she was scared, though she was, not because she was being raped, but because it was _Lee,_ her cousin who she loved so much, who was pulling down her underwear and letting it drop onto the floor as well and leaving her completely naked underneath him on his bed.

There were no gentle touches now that there had been earlier, Lee's hands wandering over her bare skin feverishly as he pressed his mouth to hers hungrily, still trying to open her mouth so he could taste her properly, his arousal pressing against her thigh. One hand stopped at her breast, caressing it roughly, rubbing it in the palm of his hand, yet what made Mariah cringe underneath him was the other hand that crept down her navel and then …

Oh God. It _hurt_. Mariah's eyes flew upon as she dug her nails into the blankets, biting her lip until she drew blood as Lee's fingers dug deeper insider her, breathing in sharply from the pain under Lee's mouth. His kisses left her mouth to move slowly down her body, down her neck and onto her bare breasts, Mariah hoping with all her being to just fall through the bed as her cousin took one of her breasts in his mouth, his tongue running over it like the lapping of a cat.

Yeah. He was like a cat. No, a lion. And she was a lioness who would be taken, whether willing or not, because he wanted her. Mariah wondered how long he had wanted to do this to her, regardless of if she wanted to or not, regardless of the scandal it would cause among the elders because of the blood that bound them. Had he wanted to when they were walking around with the others, watching her out of the corner of his eye? Had he wanted to a month back, when they were lying alone under the stars?

Mariah seemed to be very separate from herself now, as if it was someone else who was being attacked, and she was just watching. Her head swam … he had wanted her when they were under the stars … why couldn't she have seen it before?

~

_We laughed again, falling back under the stars onto the thick grass that cushioned the ground beneath us. I could feel him lying close near by, closer than I'd let another guy, but I didn't mind. He was my cousin, and it was hardly like he was going to jump me or anything. He turned over so he was leaning on his side towards me._

_"Mariah, Madison's been stalking me again."_

_I rolled my eyes when thinking about Kevin's older cousin, shifting so I was on my side too, "That's your fault, making her think you had a crush on her. Otherwise she wouldn't have thought about you that way."_

_"It's not my fault that all the girls love me," Lee batted his eyes at me sarcastically, grinning. I spluttered, throwing my jumper at him._

_"Lee, many girls can find faults, both physical and mental, about you."_

_"Like what?" he asked sincerely, sitting up, apparently interested. I sat up as well, not caring about the grass stains that had appeared on the white clothes._

_"Well …" I screwed up my face, trying to say it without sounding nasty. He laughed and shrugged at me._

_"Just point at the physical bits."_

_I lifted my hand, and shakily pressed it to the tip of his nose. He scowled and screwed up his face._

_"Believe me, I know that one." He seemed to have changed his mind, " I don't like this, stop it."_

_"Shouldn't have suggested it then," I cackled happily, crossing my legs and gripping my sneakers, rocking back and forth. "Lee, is there anything wrong with me?"_

_"Nope," he answered immediately, lying back on the grass with his hands behind his head. I frowned sceptically._

_"There can't be nothing wrong with me Lee."                 _

_"What can I say?" the black lion asked me, staring up at the sky, "We are all mere mortals. We bow to your brilliance."_

_"Don't talk shit Lion," I chuckled. He gazed sideways at me in mock shock, a smile creasing his mouth._

_"The pure one uses such filthy language. Where'd you learn that?"_

_"From you."_

_"Fair enough," he admitted. We sat there for a while in silence, then I lay on my stomach, leaning my head on my hands as I stared at his face. "Lee, if you don't like Madison, who do you like?"_

_"Can't tell you that," he laughed, though somehow awkwardly. I whined for a few minutes for him to tell me, yet he just tapped his nose and kept staring at the stars._

_"If you can't tell me who she is, tell me what's she's like," I finally said in exasperation. He lay there for a second before flipping over to lie on his stomach, leaning on his hands as well as though to mock me as usual._

_"Well," he started, "She's pretty, really nice, and she's completely and utterly mad. Okay, I'm done," he finished, turning over onto his back again._

_"Hey! That doesn't tell me anything!"_

_"Exactly, cause you'll tell Ray, Kevin and Gary if you figure it out, and even if it's wrong, you'll tell them anyway."_

_"Ohhhhh, you're no fun," I sulked, lying on my back as well and looking at the light dots Lee seemed to find interesting. They were … pretty, really. We all named a star after ourselves once, but me, Lee, Ray, Kevin nor Gary could remember which ones. But I was thirteen now, and I was better at remembering than when I was practically a baby._

_" Lee, let's name a star," I said, sitting up again. He sat up as well, though grumpily._

_"You never sit still, do you? You sit under the stars to relax, but you keep bobbing up and down!"_

_"Please?" I pleaded, and he sighed heavily, staring back up._

_"Right, all the stars on that side are called Lee," he said, drawing an imaginary line down the middle of the sky and pointing to the left, " and all the stars on that side are called Mariah. Okay, we're done," he said, lying back down._

_"LEE!"_

_"Okay, okay, fine!"_

_He turned a serious eye to the sky now. His mother had once told me that Lee turned his eyes darker than everyone else's in the village by staring at the night sky so much, and I understood where she got it from. After a few moments, he pointed to a large shiny star to the left of us in the sky._

_"There's you."_

_"Where are you then?"_

_He pointed to a smaller star right next to it, "Right there."_

_"Has that got a long and mushy point to it?" I asked, prodding him in a muscled arm._

_He snorted, "Of course. It means that I'll always be there for a certain irritating cousin of mine who is one of the most annoying people I know."_

_"Really?" I asked about the annoying bit._

_"Well, beside Kevin," he laughed._

_I laughed too, then smiled softly, "Love ya Lee," I said as I hugged him, leaning my head against his chest. He looped his right arm around me._

_"Of course. What's there not to love? Don't start," Lee abolished when he saw the grin on my face._

~

Mariah was jerked back into reality as she felt the kisses that were becoming more demanding, and the hands that seemed to be trying to get underneath her skin, yet they couldn't get any closer than he already was. Mariah lay there for a few moments, then notice as one hand left her skin so her cousin could tug one-handed at his belt.

That sparked life back into her veins, and her mind was clear as crystal in those few crucial moments; she couldn't let him do this. Her left hand whipped out from under his body, scrambling desperately for something, anything – then her hand closed around something and, not caring what it was, Mariah stabbed it down into Lee's bare back. He let out a roar of agony, bolting up from where he was lying and fell off the bed onto the rough wooden floor.

Silence, except for the continuous murmur of talk in the rooms below them, Lee's heavy breathing and Mariah's stifled sobs.

Lee sat up from the floor where he had fallen, gasping deeply from the pain, and Mariah was slightly relieved to see that his eyes were clear and back to their ordinary colour, though she still flinched away when he came towards her again, kneeling at the side of the bed.

"Mariah?" he asked tentatively, reaching out a hand to touch her arm.

"Don't touch me, please," Mariah pleaded, crying heavily now. Her cousin withdrew his hand quickly, his own eyes watering a little.

"Oh Gods, Mariah … Mariah, I'm so sorry … " he shook his head desperately, "I'm so fucking sorry …"

Mariah choked a little as she cried harder, not getting up from the bed as Lee tightened his belt again and helplessly walked around the room, picking up her clothes, leaving them in a pile at the bottom of his bed, not coming to close to her as that made her recoil away from him. Mariah saw as he pulled his vest back on that there was a large burn on his back, red and angry, the remains of the candle that she had drove into his back lying on the wooden floor nearby. He walked back over to the bed and kneeled again.

"Mariah … get dressed, and then tell your parents what I did when we go downstairs, okay?" When I didn't move, he sniffed loudly, "Please Mariah … I don't want to touch you and hurt you again."

She sat up on the bed, Lee turning away modestly as she dressed, her fingers fumbling a few times as she tried to clip her bra too quickly, still crying. She felt … filthy. It was like he had smeared her body with dirt, and that it was melting into her flesh so she wouldn't be able to get it away, not ever. After a few moments, Mariah had pulled her top over her head and then her jumper, covering up as much skin as she could.

"Are you done?" Lee asked with his back to her. When she had told him she was, he turned around and looked at her sorrowfully. "Mariah … tell our parents when we go downstairs, please." Mariah could see the wet trails on his cheeks where his tears had fallen.

~

When Lee and Mariah took their seats at the table, Aunt Mei getting up for a few moments to fill their plates as well, the quiet talking ceased. Mariah thought they had noticed that she had been crying.

"Did you have a nice talk upstairs?" Aunt Mei smiled at them as she returned to her seat. For a moment, they simply stared around at the adults who were all beaming at them, and Mariah understood. They all thought that she and Lee had been talking about Ray. For a moment, she didn't know whether to laugh, or cry, or both, hysterical laughter and heart-breaking tears battling for release in her chest. She simply nodded, and the people faded back into a buzz of mutterings and murmuring.

Lee, sat across from her, fixed her with an absolute stare of disbelief. Mariah had usually been able to tell what he was thinking just from the look on his face, and this one was as plain as day.

_Why didn't you tell them? Tell them tell them tell them tell them –  _

Mariah dropped her glance to the plate in front of her, piled high with food that she hadn't touched. She felt sick, sick at the obliviousness of the people around her who carried on like nothing was wrong. They took it for granted that they had merely spoken – how would they react if they found out that Lee had pinned her underneath him in his bed not ten minutes past? Her aunt Mei would probably deny it all, crying profusely, uncle Yuan would yell and probably beat Lee into a pulp. Her parents would bay for his blood, and Ray's parents would quickly take their leave, speaking in hushed tones as they left the house as fast as they could.

She shook her head, the savoury smells of the food all around her making her want to vomit. She sensed her mother's glance boring into her, and she raised her eyes to meet it, a questioning look in her eyes.

"Mao, are you okay?"

Mariah shook her head, "I don't feel well. I'm gonna go home, if that's alright with everyone."

Her mother looked like she wanted to say that it wasn't alright at all, her eyes lingering on the untouched food, but Aunt Mei intervened.

"Of course you can go home, Mao. Have a bath and go to bed, we'll get along without you."

Mariah got up from her seat, leaving the table to head towards the front door, hearing her aunt Mei tell her sister "You need to let her have her space to get over Ray," as Lee let out a strangled sound of protest, but she ignored both, yanking her shoes on, pulling the door open and walking out into the rain that was falling more heavily than before, slamming it harder than she intended behind her.

The dirt of the road had turned quickly into mud since she had last crossed it, and Mariah had to struggle through it as it tried to suck her sneakers into its depths. But after a moment or two, she reached the steps to her front door and went inside quickly, running to find the water that was stored in the kitchen of her home. Upon finding the large barrel of well water, she took the bucket and filled it to the brim, walking unsteadily with it to the fireplace in her front room, pouring it into a large pot next to it. It took a few trips to fill the huge pot, but she managed it eventually, and she hung it over the blazing fire, waiting for it to boil.

Mariah stared into the flames as she sat on the wooden floor, her knees at her chest and her arms hugging her legs. The feeling of being unclean was becoming unbearable now, and it set her skin itching terribly as her mind was ablaze with the desire to score the dirt and stains away. Ray would never want her now … she lowered her head so her temples  touched her knees, tears oozing down her cheeks.

The sound of water bubbling in the pot caught her attention, and she walked into the kitchen again to drag out a large tub that was big enough to sit in. Mariah pulled it up the stairs into her room, and walked back down to pull up the huge pot from the fire, staggering under it's weight as the handle burned fiercely into her hands. But she made it in the end, pouring it all into the tub and closing her bedroom door with a quiet click.

Her eyes flew to the open bedroom window as she saw the black outline of the window of her cousin's room, and Mariah was quick to close both the window and the curtains before she stared down at the water in the tub, steam rising steadily from it as she watched. She stripped off her clothes quickly, hoping never to wear them again as she flinged them into a pile, then she stepped into the water, swearing mentally as she felt it burn her skin, the liquid still scalding hot from the boil, then getting to the task of cleaning herself.

She slaved obsessively over it from nearly an hour, scrubbing at every inch of skin he had touched until blood beaded her skin and it hurt every time she flicked the cloth over it. The water was streaked with red as she scoured at her legs, her face, her breasts, her stomach, and she let the scalding water run into her entrance, stinging and bleeding a little without any of her help. Mariah kept scrubbing blankly until her skin flared an angry red and the water was cold, then she stepped out of the tub and walked, dripping, over to her wardrobe.

Mariah ripped through all the clothes, hands searching frantically for something that wasn't revealing, something, anything … why was everything so small? Eventually her hands found something that she hadn't worn for nearly two years; an old over-sized jumper and loose pants, the outfit she had worn for a while she was 'developing,' when she was eleven years old, and she pulled the grey material over her stinging body. The too-big material gave her body a shapeless look, and that was fine with her.

She sat on the blankets of her bed, wincing slightly as her body throbbed with the pain, the grey material clinging to the patches of blood on her skin. For all her efforts, she still felt unclean, and her mind was still full of the memories of Lee pressing her against the bed, his body ablaze. The young girl sat in the silence of the empty house, her ears still full of the murmuring of the adults who were oblivious, her eyes seeing her cousin standing by the window and watching the rain, and then Mariah simply closed her eyes, took a deep shuddering breath and lay with her knees tucked to her chest, until darkness took her and she knew no more.

~

_I didn't tell anyone for two years what had happened to me. I kept my silence, for fear that my parents wouldn't believe me and that Lee would be angry. I kept up the pretence that I was pure and innocent, and hoped that no one would see the stains that only I seemed to see. I tried to forgive Lee in Russia, the night that we all lost our sacred spirits, but that was only because I saw what he had been doing to himself; have you ever wondered why Lee wears the wrappings on his arms? He had been cutting himself for months, hiding them under the bandages, and that night he cut himself, in the wrong place and too deep. I sat with him in hospital that night as he was given a blood infusion and watched as Mr Dickenson fought to keep it quiet, so he could leave the hospital without being detained for self-mutilation._

_Sometimes I wonder though. If Lee had not been my cousin, would things be different? If we were not related, he would not torture himself this way. If it was not for the blood that binds us._

~*~

Authoress notes: This story is quite low standard, and I am not very happy with the ending. But there are a few things I want to comment on about it:

I did not choose Mariah for this odd obsession I have because I hate her. Gone are the days where I would bay for her blood every time she came on screen in Beyblade. I have had this fixation with Lee and Mariah since I began writing, though recently it has become more of a thing with me.

Another thing is that I have not been raped myself, though I came close when I was three years old, something that I cannot remember, thankfully. I have also had no sexual contact with anyone (since I don't like people touching me at all *twitch*) and I have also never been kissed, so this was hardly the easiest thing to write. Forgive me for its shiteness.

Review at your own pleasure, though remember what I wrote at the beginning of this one-shot. I have found that since I moved from my old account that reviews are in short supply, so I suppose that it was my name that drew people to my fics, not what I actually wrote. Or perhaps it is my new depressing tone … *shrugs* I would also like to dedicate this story to Jedi Princess Clarrisani for her continued support of me and my deranged cousincest – centred thoughts. May you have happiness, joy and non-drug related ecstasy in your life my friend.

~SC~ ~MyHeartBleeds~


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